(Bloomberg) -- Absa Group Ltd., South Africa’s third-largest bank by assets, pledged to diversify its board and senior leadership within two years, after getting censured by investors for hiring a White man as its chief executive officer.

The Johannesburg-based lender in March appointed Arrie Rautenbach as CEO, immediately prompting criticism by the Public Investment Corp., the nation’s biggest fund, which said it was a “downright disappointment.”

“We do realize we’ve regressed,” Absa Chairman Matthews Sello Moloko said at the bank’s annual general meeting on Friday. Absa will seek to demonstrate “significant progress at senior levels within the next 18 to 24 months,” he said.

Companies in South Africa have been under pressure to appoint more Black executives since the end of apartheid in 1994, but have made limited progress. Of the 10 largest local companies by market value, only three currently have Black CEOs in a country where four out of five people are Black, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Absa’s shares advanced 2% by 2:17 p.m. in Johannesburg, brings its gains this year to 18%.

“We will continue to address and make sure that we remain properly representative both at board level and also within the executive,” Moloko said. 

The PIC said it has had engagements with Absa and will monitor the progress made regarding the advancement of women as well as racial diversity at Absa’s board and executive levels. The PIC owns 6.7% of Absa, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

“We look forward to getting the transformation targets and time lines, which must be integrated into the remuneration policy, with dedicated weighting for transparent monitoring,” according to a PIC statement that was read at Absa’s AGM.

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